Zenith

ICT4D Week 2018

Tuesday, May 08, 2018

NPF Pensions inducted into ‘FOI Hall of Shame’

The Media Rights Agenda (MRA) has named the NPF PensionsLimited as this week’s inductee into its “Freedom of Information (FOI) Hall of
Shame” for the opacity of its operation in violation of the provisions of the
FOI Act, reports ITRealms.

MRA also said the institution’s practice of operating in
secrecy was also contrary to its own core values, which include transparency
and accountability.

MRA’s Project Director, Mr. Segun Fatuase, noted in a
statement in Lagos that since the establishment of the NPF Pensions Limited,
following the passage of the FOI Act into Law in 2011, the institution has
consistently undermined the objectives of the Act by conducting its business in
secrecy.

According to Mr. Fatuase, the NPF Pensions Limited was
incorporated on October 21 2013, with a fully paid share capital of N1 billion
and with two major shareholders, the Nigeria Police Welfare Insurance
Cooperative Society Limited and the Nigeria Police Multipurpose Cooperative
Society Limited. The NPF Pensions
Limited was established with the approval of the Federal Government as a
Pension Fund Administrator to cater to the unique needs of the Police following
inadequacies in the current Contributory Pension Scheme and earlier pension
schemes.

He said since the institution was established, it had
consistently flouted Section 2 of the FOI Act which requires all public
institutions to proactively disclose certain types of information to the public
and to update these categories of information whenever changes occur as well as
to make such information readily available to the public through the various
means listed in the Act, namely print, electronic, online methods and at the
offices of the organization. He added
that the NPF Pensions Limited has failed to publish the information that it is
required to proactively disclose under this section.

Mr. Fatuase observed that the NPF Pensions Limited has also
failed to proactively disclose information relating to its receipt or
expenditure of its public or other funds and a range of other types of
information, as required by section 2(3)(d)(v) of the FOI Act.

He accused the organisation of failing to comply with
Section 2(3) (f) of the Act which requires all public institutions such as the
NPF Pensions Limited to designate an appropriate officer to whom applications
for information under the Act should be sent and the institution to proactively
publish the title and address of such an officer.

Besides, Mr. Fatuase said: “There is no indication
whatsoever that the NPF Pensions Limited
has provided the requisite training for its officials on the public’s
right of access to information or records held by it or that it has
appropriately trained its officials to effectively implement the Act, as it is
required to do by Section 13 of the Act.”

He criticized the NPF Pensions Limited for flagrantly
violating Section 29 of the FOI Act, which places an obligation on all public
institutions to submit annual reports to the Attorney-General of the Federation
on their implementation of the Act, noting that “since the Act was passed into
Law nearly seven years ago, the NPF Pensions Limited has not submitted any
report to the Attorney-General of the Federation or issued any such report for
any year.”

Mr. Fatuase said: “Such blatant disregard for a statutory
obligation should not be permitted in any form under the rule of law. It is a
conduct capable of bringing the Government to ridicule as it creates the
impression that rules, laws and regulations are of no consequence because
public institutions and the officials who preside over them are at liberty to
ignore such rules, laws and regulations.”

He also observed that the failure of the NPF Pensions
Limited to submit its annual reports to the Attorney-General of the Federation
has made it virtually impossible to determine the number of applications for
access to information that it has received for each year since the Act was
passed into Law and the number of such applications that it processed and
granted for any particular year or overall.

Mr. Fatuase stressed that there was no justifiable excuse
for the NPF Pensions Limited’s refusal to fulfill its duties and obligations
under the FOI Act and called on the relevant authorities of the Federal
Government to take stern measures to address the situation.

Launched in July 2017, the FOI Hall of Shame shines the
spotlight on public officials and institutions that are undermining the
effectiveness of the FOI Act through their actions, inactions, utterances and
decisions.